The appropriate nutrition for an infant during the first 4 to 6 months of their life is universally considered to be their mother's own breast milk. However, in some cases feeding of infants with their mother's milk is insufficient and may result in unsatisfied growth. An example hereof is preterm infants which, if fed entirely with human breast milk, will need a higher amount of certain nutrients and a higher energy content than what is present in breast milk. Preterm or premature infants which are infants born before the 37th week of gestation, may have a low body weight. Thus, a mother's breast milk needs to be supplemented with some nutrients. Another example where the mother's milk may be insufficient for an infant is infants which are small for their gestational age. Such infants will also need a supplement of some nutrients to the breast milk. Still another example of mother's milk being insufficient for an infant may be term infants fed with their mothers' breast milk, but where the mothers breast milk is low in some nutrients, for example contains a low fat content or is depleted from fat. Also in this case, the mother's milk should be fortified or supplemented.
In some cases breast feeding however is inadequate or unsuccessful or inadvisable for medical reasons or the mother chooses not to breast feed either at all or for a period of more than a few weeks. Standard infant formulas is developed for these situations, however infants fed with infant formulas may not necessarily need the same amount of all nutrients. In some cases an infant fed with infant formulas may need a higher content of some nutrients than present in the conventional infant formulas. This could for example be infants small in weight who need a higher fat and energy content.
Common for all the above mentioned infants are that neither commercially available infant formulas nor human breast milk have a nutritional composition which is optimal for all infants, in particular preterm infants. Thus, some infants will need a supplement of some nutrients as compared to human breast milk and conventionally infant formulas to optimise their growth. However, the need of nutrients is very individual from one infant to another one.
Today different infant formulas are available on the market, both for term infants and preterm infants. However, all known infant formulas have a fixed amount of nutrients and it is not possible to adjust the content of the nutrients according to individual needs. Some nutritional supplementary compositions, fortifiers, are also known in the art but all of them also contain specific amounts of nutrients, such as proteins, carbohydrate and fat. Thus, there is a need in the art for an apparatus for preparing tailored individual nutritional compositions designed for specific infants in order to meet infants' individual nutritional needs. Such an apparatus automatizes the process of preparing individualized nutrition and makes the preparation more convenient, easy and fast.
The international patent application, WO2008/111942 discloses a method of tailoring infant formulas to individual nutritional needs prior to use. The method includes A) determining the desired volume and optimal caloric density of a formula to be fed to a preterm or low birth weight infant; B) obtaining a plurality of base infant formulas, all in liquid form, C) selecting two of the base liquid formulas having a caloric density value above and below the optimal caloric density, D) calculating the volume of each selected base formula needed to produce the desired volumes of an infant formula blend and having the optimal caloric density, E) combining the calculated volumes of the selected base formulas to produce an infant formula blend having the desired volume, optimal caloric density, an osmolarity between 200 and 360 mOsm/Kg water, and a caloric density between 609 and 1082 kcal/L, and F) feeding the resulting formula to a preterm or low birth weight infant.
WO2008/111942, however, do not disclose an apparatus for preparing metered amounts of ingredients based on individual needs of some nutrients.
US2011/0052764 describes dispensers for dispensing nutritional products such as customised nutritional beverages. Some physical data of the customers are taken into consideration. However this apparatus is not adapted for nutritional compositions to be administered to infants and it does not provide tailored nutritional compositions adapted to the specific needs of an infant, especially based on the health parameters of said infant.
US2006/278093 refers to a device with at least two water reservoirs and a method for preparing a fluid food on demand and at a desired consumption temperature. The fluid food can be consumed by a large proportion of the population but the invention is more focused on how providing a fluid product at a desired temperature that developing specific means to obtain a personalized nutritional composition that will be specifically adapted for infant consumption and tailored depending on the infant needs.
Thus, there is an unmet need for an apparatus which can provide a nutritional composition either intended to supplement human breast milk or to make up an infant formula as such, which is tailored specifically for a specific infant.